Desperately Seeking Apartments

So just to explain further about the whole moving melodrama....

I had been hanging out in Brattleboro, living about a mile from work, which was convenient because, you know, that's a really short commute. If you expected me to say it was convenient so I could walk to work, you clearly don't know me as well as you think you do. Well, that's not true. I would have been able to walk if my 15 year old Buick had crapped out on me.
Although the place was plenty big enough - there was one room that I hardly ever spent any time in it (okay, two if you count the kitchen)- the rent was atrociously high for me. I think it was about 42% of my gross income. So two years of that began to take its toll on my savings. Thus the new apartment search began. This is where it gets interesting.

I met someone through a friend. I will call this person......CB. Yes, CB stands for something, but I am a better person now than I was a month ago, so I'm not going to elaborate. Use your imagination. Anyway, CB happened to hang out with myself and a group of mutual friends. CB was having a tougher time financially than I was, so the idea of sharing living space seemed like a wonderfully practical idea. Ha!

First, I dragged my feet on sharing living space with this person because CB had decided to hook up with a friend/crush of mine. I know I can be ignorantly optimistic sometimes, but even I knew that that sort of living situation would be a bit uncomfortable if I did not come to terms with the CB/RHS situation. But I did, and some other things happened in my life that allowed me to believe that the roommate situation would work out for the best.

So I made sure CB was aware that I did want to share living quarters. Now the tables were turned. CB dragged her feet, but finally a place was found. A three bedroom place with one other person, a complete stranger (found out later that this person had a record, and had driven her vehicle into two cars in the breakdown lane last winter, sending three people to the hospital). Total rent would be $1500. It had a dishwasher AND washer and dryer, and was not much further from work. In fact, it almost justified driving to work, but still close enough that a walk would be doable, because when you drive a car that is in the teens, you live for the moment. You know, the moment it dies and you end up walking.

Everything seemed great until the day we met the landlord. Landlord was cool, third roomie seemed cool, even the lease agreement seemed cool until Landlord said "one of you will have to sign for all three people." Big red flag popped up. Then, third roomie says to Landlord, "I'm thinking of moving to be closer to my parents." Whoa, whoa, whoa...this can't be good. Now, this may not seem that major, but this all went down literally four days before I needed to vacate my current premises (never give notice until you have an apartment...just to state the obvious).

At this point in the timeline, instead of packing, I decided it would be a great weekend to drive to Maine. While in Maine, I was informed that CB made the decision to not take the current place, which was fine with me. Next, CB located an affordable little apartment a few miles out of town with an "interesting" setup. Apparently one of us would sleep on an enclosed porch until it became too cold at night, and then would move into the living room for the winter. I think when one is faced with the thought of living out of one's car, any living situation involving a roof and four walls sounds spectacular. So we took the apartment.

To make a long story not as long as it could be, CB quit her job the week we signed the year lease. I found out a week later. Two weeks after we moved, I took a vacation to Maine (moving is hard work!). I was warmly greeted by my return to my new domicile with a note that informed me CB had taken her hamster, Dumbass, and gone home, which was about 250 miles away. "I don't know when I'm coming back. Hope you had a good vacation." Well, it was great until I read that. I immediately thought it was going to be a long 11 and a half months before the end of the lease.

Eventually CB did come back. And stayed for about two months. I was informed that the job search was not going well, and so she returned to her old stomping grounds, but only after she scared the bejeepers out of our 82-year-old landlord. I've been very fortunate to have my awesome family and great friends to help me through the entire ordeal. Now, if she just forwarded her mail and returned the other key to the P.O. box, we'd be cool. But I think I may end up having to switch out to my own mailbox before too long, because I don't want to have to worry about her coming in contact with my potentially important documents.

Well, that's basically the moving drama. Once I knew I had to leave place 2, I began my apartment search in earnest and found a great little place. As they say, it all comes out in the wash. Of course, I could spend an entire entry on the actual moving out of place 1, but that would just be painful. Some things are better left unwritten.